The European parliamentarians decided on Tuesday to lift the immunity of SOS MEP Diana Șoșoacă, following a request from the General Prosecutor's Office in Romania, which accuses her of committing several crimes, including legionary propaganda.
The plenary of the European Parliament voted on Tuesday with a large majority to lift the immunity of MEP Diana Şoșoacă.
The exact vote count is to be announced.
The plenary vote came after the Legal Commission of the European Parliament (EP) decided last week, with 17 votes in favor, zero votes against and one abstention, to lift the immunity of Şoșoacă.
The votes in the EP come after the General Prosecutor's Office requested the European legislature to lift Sosoacă's immunity for committing several crimes, including legionary propaganda, last year.
In last week's official report, which was also the basis of Tuesday's plenary vote, the Legal Commission of the European Parliament listed several accusations in connection with which it decided to vote for the lifting of immunity, but also one in which it decided that the lifting of immunity was not necessary – a speech in the EP, in which Sosoacă recommended his colleagues to develop foreign policy strategies following the model of Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Why is Sosoaca accused?
According to the General Prosecutor's Office, the case prosecutor of the Criminal Investigation Section ordered the continuation of the criminal investigation of Diana Șoșoacă, for the following crimes:
- 4 crimes of illegal deprivation of liberty, prev. of art. 205 para. 1 Criminal Code;
- 4 offenses of promoting, in public, the cult of persons convicted of crimes of genocide against humanity and war crimes, as well as the act of promoting, in public, fascist, legionary, racist or xenophobic ideas, concepts or doctrines, prev. of art. 5 of GEO no. 31/2002;
- promoting, in public, in any way, anti-Semitic ideas, conceptions or doctrines, prev. of art. 3 of Law no. 157/2018, regarding some measures to prevent and combat anti-Semitism;
- denying, contesting, approving, justifying or minimizing obviously, by any means, in public, the holocaust or its effects, prev. of art. 6 para. 1 of GEO no. 31 of 2002;
- outrage, prev. of art. 257 para. 1 and 4 Criminal Code.
The Legal Commission's report said that “all these alleged crimes and the related request to lift Diana Sosoacă's immunity are not related to an opinion or a vote expressed by her in the exercise of her functions as a member of the European Parliament”.
The legal commission therefore decided to lift the immunity of Şoşoacă in relation to all these alleged crimes.
“Parliamentary immunity is not a personal privilege”
In its report, the Law Commission also said that Parliament had not identified any evidence of a “fumus persecutionis” – a legal term describing reasonable suspicion that a legal action is politically motivated.
The report said that there are no factual elements to indicate that the judicial procedure was initiated with the intention of undermining the political activity of Diana Sosoacă in her capacity as a member of the European Parliament.
At the same time, the Legal Commission specified that “Parliament cannot be assimilated to a court and, on the other hand, in the context of a procedure to lift immunity, the deputy in question cannot be considered an “accused person”.
The report also showed that according to the rules of procedure, “parliamentary immunity is not a personal privilege of the deputy, but a guarantee of the independence of the Parliament as a whole and its deputies.”
What does Sosoaca say
Sosoacă reacted on Facebook, last week, after the vote in the Legal Commission.
“How afraid the Romanian and European systems are of Diana Iovanovici-Şoșoacă! And they have every reason!” she said.
Soșoacă was summoned to the General Prosecutor's Office in March, in the file in which she is accused of legionary propaganda. A week before, she had been heard in the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.
According to some officials of the Prosecutor's Office, the prosecutors wanted Diana Şoșoacă to undergo a psychiatric examination, but they need her consent to start the procedure, which is the reason why she was summoned, Agerpres wrote in March.
“It returned to everything that Soviet institutions mean: punitive psychiatry, the reminiscence of those acts of terror against those who disturbed the system. (…) I am sending myself for a psychiatric examination, all this General Prosecutor's Office full of traitors, uneducated and incompetent, who receive political orders, they must go, not to undergo an examination, but to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment. If they still want sovietism, then let them go to psychiatry, before you ask others”, said Sosoacă to dozens of supporters, who came with flags and placards to the headquarters of the General Prosecutor's Office.
